‘I refused point blank. “Well,” he said, “I rely on your honour not to peach.” He knew he had caught me. My master took an early opportunity of having me flogged on a charge of insolence; the magistrates were two friends who had been dining with him. My tempter came to me again, and, on the next opportunity, I drove in the bullocks and became a _thief_. Having begun I could not stop; my tempter became my tyrant; to drown care I began to drink and to associate with the old hands, and then the money, for which I had resigned body and soul, melted away. What I saved up I knew not what to do with, and so I went on getting worse and worse, until one day, just as I was driving a pair of young heifers into the butcher’s yard, I was arrested, tried, and convicted on the evidence of my fellow-servant, who, having been found out in another robbery, saved himself by turning on me. I was sentenced to three years hard labour in an iron gang on the Blue mountains. What I suffered in those three years no tongue can tell. I was coupled with a wretch who had been a thief from his childhood, a burglar, and a murderer, but there was one man, a political prisoner sentenced to the iron gang for striking his overseer, who saved me, and spoke words of comfort to me; my term was shortened a year for rescuing a gentleman from a bush ranger, and Major Z—— having left the colony, I was assigned to my present master. In another year I shall have my ticket, but what I shall do heaven only knows. I have had one letter from my wife; she was living as dairy-maid with one of the Miss Caltons, who had married a country gentleman; they were very good to her, and I think her letter, full of good words, helped to save me from total ruin. But you, sir, are almost the only gentleman that has spoken a kind word to me in the Colony. We live like beasts of the field, working and well-fed, but nothing more. On many stations the prisoners don’t even know when Sunday comes round, and we die like dogs.’ Here he paused: and I felt so much affected by his melancholy story, that I could not at the time answer him, or offer any words of comfort. * * * * *